


Life Before His Eyes

by nowhere_dawn_death_phan



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Character Death, Gen, andy doesnt deserve this, but its happening anyway
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-14
Updated: 2020-02-14
Packaged: 2021-02-27 19:35:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,224
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22721059
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nowhere_dawn_death_phan/pseuds/nowhere_dawn_death_phan
Summary: They say that when you die, your life flashes before your eyes. Andy thinks he’d much rather prefer to talk his through
Comments: 1
Kudos: 13





	Life Before His Eyes

“Do you know how I knew there was something wrong?” Gwen’s voice was trembling.  
“How?”  
“You didn’t answer the phone.”  
He tried to laugh, though it came out as more of a shaky sob.  
“Fifteen years of friendship, you’ve never once missed a call from me. Not once.”  
“I try.”  
“You remember-” she took his hand and squeezed it gently. “-when me and Rhys got in that fight? You were in France for a friends wedding, it was two o’clock in the morning. I rang you, and I remember thinking there was no way you were going to answer. But you did. On the second ring.”  
Andy turned his head to look at her. “I was drunk.”  
“You were drunk.” She agreed, laughing though tears were building in her eyes. “You flew back three days early and I lived with you for the rest of the week because I was too ashamed to go home.”  
“I made you knock on the door with a bunch of flowers-”  
“-And he wasn’t even in! He’d gone to the pub with Banana, the bastard.” Gwen laughed.  
Andy glanced in the direction of Gwen’s mobile, laying on the cobbles a few feet away. “You guys still there?”  
“Going as fast as we can, mate.” Owen told him. “Jack’s breaking every speed limit in Wales. You couldn’t have gotten attacked by an alien on a day we were actually in Cardiff could ya, cuz that would have been far too simple.”  
“Bloody Torchwood.” Andy sighed. “Bloody Weevils.”

“Do you remember…” Gwen’s voice shook. “…eating chips on patrol, the first time we were given the night shift?”  
Andy laughed. “They were shit. Cost you a quid for a large. We sat with them spread out on the dashboard. They were cold, weren’t they?”  
“It rained. And we forgot to find a bin, so you had to shove the wrapping up your shirt so nobody found out, and you forgot you’d put it there until you got home.  
“I stank like chip fat for a week. And I had to throw the shirt away because I couldn’t get the grease stains out.”  
“You were so young then, so eager.”  
“I was twenty-three, Gwen. Hardly a boy.”  
“But nowhere near a responsible adult.”  
“You remember me saying that?”  
“The first day we met. Course I do, you daft sod. Stopped a shoplifter, you brought flowers for your girlfriend, I teased you because you had a crush on me. You were good though. I remember thinking there were worse partners to have.”  
“Bet you weren’t thinking that when I sprained my ankle chasing someone down the street.”  
Gwen thought for a moment. “It was a kid, wasn’t it? I think he’d nicked something. I practically carried you back to the car.”  
“You teased me for a month after. Kept calling me PC Plod, like I was some blasted children’s character.”  
“You deserved it. I don’t think I’d ever laughed so much in my life. You’d got no coordination, absolutely none. Could hardly run in a straight line. But god, you were quick. You’d have got him if he’d carried on down the road. It was the stairs that did you in, trying to jump a whole flight in one go; you’d never have managed it, never in a month of Sundays.”  
“Gotta give me credit for trying.”

Andy pushed himself further up the wall, wincing. “Damn thing. Ruined my shirt.”  
Gwen laughed disbelievingly. “Of course you’re more worried about the shirt. Not like a Weevil took a hulking great chunk out of your side or anything.”  
“It’s not a chunk.” Andy protested. “It’s a scratch.”  
“Stop trying to play hero, Andy!” Gwen snapped, sliding from her haunches onto her knees. “It’s not a crime to be afraid.”  
Andy rested his head back against the wall. “Who said anything about me being afraid, sweetheart?” he tried to joke, but Gwen saw a tear roll down his cheek in the moonight.  
“Here,” she said quickly. “You remember the first guy we arrested, remember the day he actually got his sentencing?”  
“We went out, didn’t we? Thought it was worth celebrating a job well done? You got drunk.”  
“We got drunk. Almost got arrested ourselves.”  
“That was your fault, Gwen. You wouldn’t get off the table. We had to run for it.”  
“Shared a kebab under the tree in the park. You threw it right back up again.”  
Andy frowned. “That was a bad kebab.”  
“You made me buy you a milkshake.”  
“It was a very good milkshake.”  
“You still owe me a quid for that.” She told him.

There was a dull tone as the battery on Gwen’s phone went dead, and it startled both of them into silence. They were alone.  
“Those Weevils, they’re nasty creatures, aren’t they?” Andy asked quickly, as if trying to distract himself and Gwen.  
“Lucky it didn’t have your throat out,” Gwen told him.  
“Not so sure I am. Least then this would have been quick. And do you know what the worst part is?”  
“What’s that?”  
“I’m not even gonna get to see the sunrise.”  
Gwen faltered for a moment, momentarily thrown, not entirely sure how to respond to that. “Did you ever get your car sorted? Felt like I was giving you a lift every other day because the damn thing always had something wrong with it.”  
“Sold it in the end. Bought a new one. After you moved to Torchwood, nobody else’d give me a lift. Temple partnered me with Price, of all people, and he’s hardly one for sharing his toys, so I had to sort myself out… Why are we having this conversation? What does it matter whether I got my car fixed or not?”  
“You getting philosophical on me?”  
“I’m not smart enough for that. I’m wondering why I’m spending possibly my last minutes on earth talking about the carburettor in my old green BMW when we could be discussing something interesting.”  
“Like what?”  
“Like the fact that Rhys insisted on calling me Andy Pandy for the first three months we knew each other.”  
“Like the time Temple tried to assign us both new partners to train and you staged a sit-in protest in the patrol car.”  
“It lasted for five minutes and then he gave up.” Andy laughed.  
“He could tell you weren’t going to budge, that was why. You would have sat there until you’d starved to death if he’d have let you.”

The late evening was dark. All Gwen could see of Andy was the faint glow of his hi-vis jacket and the vague outline of his face. It had been promising to rain all day, and now the dark clouds were making good of their threat. She shuffled closer to him instinctively, and he leant into her, resting his head on her shoulder. She’d forgotten how it felt to be this close to him, to feel the jutt of his bones through his skin, to hear the sound of him breathing in her ear, the weight of him against her. It reminded her of ten minute power-naps on the break room sofa, the kind where no matter what position they fell asleep in, she’d always wake to find him curled on top of her, as if he took comfort in her presence. She hoped he was comforted now, and he slid his hand into hers as if he’d read her mind, clutching it tightly. It wasn’t until he raised his other hand to her face to wipe away her tears that she realised she was crying.  
The memories of her waking to find him still sleeping sparked another memory, and she laughed. “Do you remember when you came into work ill once?”  
“Yeah. You made me a lemsip in a travel mug.”  
“You’d drank the entire thing before we’d even got out of the car park and you slept for the rest of the shift. I had to break up a bar fight between a couple of drunk guys and I couldn’t even bring them back to the station because you were in the backseat under a blanket sleeping off a head cold.” Gwen told him, and he chuckled in response.  
“Hey, Gwen?”  
“Yeah?”  
“I’m sorry, sweetheart.”  
“It’s alright.”  
“I love you. Y’know that, right? I’d do anything for you.”  
“I know, Andy. I love you too, how could I not? You’re my best mate, always will be.”  
“…Gwen?”  
“Yeah?”  
“Tell me some more stories.”

Gwen looped her arm around his shoulder and sniffled. “Remember when we handcuffed ourselves together? You handcuffed your left arm to my left arm somehow, so we were facing opposite directions. And then you couldn’t remember where you’d left the key. It was half an hour of us walking in circles and pulling each other back and forth. I think I threw a stapler at your head at one point, but I was so close to you that my aim was terrible. The key was on your desk in the end, underneath one of your paperweights, I think we’d only known each other a month at the time. And then there was the coffee that you used to bring me at the start of every shift. I’m gonna be honest, it wasn’t the best. I just never told you because you were so pleased with yourself and I didn’t want to upset you. You don’t put enough sugar in, and you use far too much milk. I drank it anyway though, because it made you smile, and seeing you happy made it worth it. I remember the family Christmas parties we invited you to in Swansea, where Rhys would drink too much sherry, and my father would tease you about the fact you hadn’t grown, and my mother would send you home with enough Tupperware containers of food to feed a small army, and we sang Christmas songs, and you wore a Santa hat that was so big it kept falling over your face, and you pulled down all the mistletoe because you were too embarrassed to kiss me under it. And that Boxing Day, you knocked over the Christmas Tree trying to do the Cha-Cha Slide in a pair of Heelys we’d bought you. You were captain of the rugby team in secondary school, you remember? I wish we’d spoken more then, back before real life got so scary.”

She didn’t know how long she spoke for, only that after a while she realised she was speaking to herself, but that didn’t stop her. She stayed, half curled up, wrapped protectively around Andy, speaking into his golden hair, the hair she’d teasingly tugged so many times, the hair she’d once threatened to dye bubblegum pink when he pissed her off, the hair she loved to drag her fingers through, the hair she admired the colour of, telling him it reminded her of stardust and sunlight until he’d blushed and grumbled and pulled away, mumbling under his breath but clearly pleased all the same.  
Then the lights came, the flashing blue lights of the SUV, the ones Owen complained made him feel like he was sat in Santa’s grotto. Gwen curled tighter then, as if believing that by hiding Andy from their prying eyes she could hide herself from the truth.  
The first hands to reach her were Owen’s. She could tell because they were gentle but insistent, much like the rest of him. No matter how hard she struggled against him, he’d struggle back, so she let him untangle her from Andy and scoot her away into the arms of somebody else.  
She turned her head to the chest of whoever it was, smelt the scent of ground coffee and musty folders and sank into him, into the arms of a Welshman, one so different but yet so similar to the one she’d held just.  
Maybe, she thought, maybe Andy was who Ianto could have been if he’d been louder, brighter, hadn’t grown up before his time. Maybe if Ianto had good parents and better luck, he’d have been a bit more like Andy. She realised she was crying at the same time she realised he was, and in that moment something connected them, some unfathomable link only the two of them understood.  
This job had taken Lisa from Ianto, and it had taken Andy from Gwen. Maybe it wasn’t something they’d ever dare bring up in conversation, but it was there, a tangible bond that formed at the bottom of a cold, dark alley in the mid-November rain.

And so there they sat, the two of them, Ianto’s hands covering Gwen’s ears as Owen made his usually clinically brisk declarations in a shaking, broken tone barely recognisable as being his own. Tosh sat still in the SUV with her hands twisting on her lap, looking out of the window into the darkness and forcing back tears of her own.  
And Jack, mid-way down the alley, unwilling to approach, but too sensitive to turn and stride away.  
Ianto rocked her, Owen did what he could to make the clean up as swift and discreet as possible, Tosh sat already devising ideas for girls only movie nights and nightclub outings, and as Gwen’s world crashed down around her, all Jack Harkness did was stand there with his hands tucked into his pockets and watch.


End file.
